Request regarding the sanctioning of high tier modules


Pathfinder Society

4/5

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I've spent the better part of two months GMing Wardens of the Reborn Forge and it's been the most tedious PFS experience I've ever had. The main reason being I decided to run it as a seeker arc which requires running it as written. This is a module that should never be run as written both due to the tier and the mechanics involved. To be clear I don't blame the author. For a different party, even decently optimized, the module could be a tpk before the second chronicle is given out. I have a strong feeling that hostile NPCs were intentionally well beyond suboptimal simply due to the expectation that PCs would be performing below par for a good part of the module. Players have been very good about indulging me in altering tactics to try to give them a challenge but really it's been seven weeks of painfully grinding through encounters where for the most part NPCs are either killed before they move or fishing for 20s to hit.

I know this happens from time to time in PFS scenarios but the difference between the time investment for preparing and running a scenario and a three part module is huge and it's much more exhausting to run through a module like this.

I opted to run the module as written since due to the sanctioning requirements it's the only way that players qualify for the bonus chronicle and I felt it fair that if players are investing two months time to play through a module they should be able to qualify for the full reward possible for playing with characters at level 12. I'm not sure if I'll run Wardens of Reborn Forge again but if I do I will not be running it as written. It's a really fun module but the inability to modify encounters so they are an appropriate challenge for the PCs at the table is a deal breaker for me. Which is a shame because that means that future tables of players end up facing reduced rewards for playing through no fault of their own.

Which brings me to the main point of this long rambling post. I'm unsure what's being planned for the sanctioning of other high tier modules such as Feast of Dust and ones that may be published in the future but I hope that they will not be sanctioned with similar restrictions. Having read through Feast of Dust it's an excellent module and I'm really looking forward to running it for PFS once it's sanctioned. At the same time as long as campaign mode is offered there's little chance of me running encounters as written, regardless of what that might imply for chronicle sheets. There's just too much variation in the power level of PCs at that tier to waste time on prepackaged encounters.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

Good to know. I was contemplating GMing this soon.

Perhaps, if my players don't mind not receiving the final Chronicle, I'll just have them make home-game replicas of their PFS Characters, then run them through Campaign Mode so I can modify encounters.

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Some tips for running this based on the experience I've had

Spoiler:
Try to find a way in the briefing with Eliza Baratella to clearly hint to the party that there's a chance of spending an extended time in the mana wastes. There was an awkward moment where players started talking about what they would do once they returned to Alkenstar and I had to try to find a way to suggest to them that almost all of the module happens away from the city.

Think about how you want handle wild magic and the mana storm. It's probably been the most entertaining part for me but it can also slow down play a lot. Especially if you catch on to the part that the mana storm means that spell casters no longer make concentration checks to see if there's a 50% chance for their spells to fail and it's possible for the storm to affect magic users in the depths of the mine. It's not specified in the module but I had players dealing with that aspect of the storm after the first time they rested in the mine and not ending until after they rested on the surface after clearing it. Though within the mine I did still roll for random chances of stable magic and anti-magic.

Rolling for wild magic events while running from the mine to the outpost took an entire session, you may want to think about if you want to spend the time doing that or find a way to condense the mechanic.

Everyone who is given firearms in the module is better at melee.

Silver Crusade 5/5

I just finished playing through Wardens of the Reborn forge in campaign mode. It took my group playing at home, once a month, for an afternoon and evening, a year to get through the module.

We played in campaign mode. Our GM did a good job. We had fun. while we largely made our characters independently of each other for the module, there was some effort to fill in the traditional rolls.

We had 4 players. One player made a dwarven fighter. Another a half elf bard, a third a Aasimar life oracle, and My character was an elven arcanist with the technomancer prestige class. The GM allowed me to take the campaign trait from the Mummy's Mask campaign which gives you access to disable device and gives you trap finding because no one else could deal with traps, and I wasn't stepping on anyone's toes.

We had allot of fun. For our 4 characters, with a 20 point build and average hit points, we found the module to be a challenge.

The Life Oracle, who worshiped Cayden Calien could channel positive energy and grant all of us the effect of a Freedom of Movement spell. My character would then drop an Evard's Black Tentacles spell right in the middle of the party. It made fights interesting. Many fights were very close for us.

Anyways this is a long way of saying, I"m glad we played through this module in campaign mode. It allowed us to play the whole module and enjoy all of the benefits of a home campaign, while getting PFS credit for one of our characters.

Now we have rotated GMS and are playing Tears at Bitter Manor and we are playing it in campaign mode.

From my limited experience, I think playing the module in campaign mode would address the OPs desire to change things and make fights more challenging.

Good luck.

4/5

I've used campaign mode before for other modules and like it quite a bit. My point of contention comes from the fact that for Wardens of the Reborn Forge specifically PFS seems to be incentivizing running the module as written and I'm not sure why. A month of pre-muster where I had to turn players away due to the level of interest. Players were all people I've played with before and most of the characters were builds I'm familiar with. Plus eight weeks of play to see how the players perform in the conditions of the module.

I understand enforcing running as written for scenarios where more often than not they are being run for inconsistent groups but it seems inane to encourage running as written in a case where the players and GM should have more than ample opportunity to talk about expectations for the module and the difficulty of the module itself has so much sensitivity to the type of party that is played.

Really the only redeeming factor to this experience is that the table was composed of a group of great players who did their best to make a rotten situation fun.

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